“What are you talking about?”
“That you’ve gotten so used to cheating, you and your uncle, you’ve forgotten that in the world outside that crummy bar of his, there are laws you can’t flout. We’re responsible for a murder, possibly two, if we don’t get to the hospital in time. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to publish my article!”
“It was a car accident and we had nothing to do with it. We were passing by and we helped these two men. That’s the only story you’ll be telling.”
“That’s the story we’ll tell when we get to the emergency room. Unless of course Ortiz comes to and denounces us before we’ve had time to escape.”
“Are you giving up?”
“How am I supposed to justify the way I obtained my information? You want me to tell the editorial board that I was part of a premeditated massacre? They’ll love that; it’ll be great for the newspaper’s reputation. You and your uncle have gotten me into deep trouble. Not to mention weeks of work down the drain.”
Marisa braked as hard as she could. The tires squealed, and the car swerved to a stop across the middle of the road.
“You can’t give up.”
“What else do you want me to do? Spend ten years in an Argentine prison waiting for justice to be done? Just start driving before I really lose my temper, throw you out of this car and leave you behind. Get moving!”
Marisa shifted into first gear and the car moved forward. Ortiz had started moaning in back.
“That’s all we need,” Andrew sighed. “Give me that gun of yours.”
“Are you going to bump him off?”
“No. Will you give me a break and stop talking bullshit?”
“In the glove box.”
Andrew picked up the gun and turned around with every intention of knocking Ortiz out cold. He slowly lowered his arm.
“I can’t do it.”
“Hit him, for Chrissake. If he breathes a word, we’re screwed.”
“We should have thought about that earlier. In any case, he’ll denounce us as soon as he’s regained consciousness.”
“At least that’ll give you enough time to leave the country. You can get on the first flight back to New York.”
“What about you? He knows who you are.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“No, it’s out of the question. We got into this madness together, and we’ll get out of it together.”
Andrew put the gun back in the glove box.
“I think I have an idea. Step on it. And don’t talk. I need to think.”
By the time the station wagon screeched to a halt in front of the hospital, Ortiz had passed out again. Marisa blew the horn and yelled at the two nurses who came running out of the double doors to bring another stretcher. She told the doctor on duty that they had come upon an accident scene in the vicinity of Gahan. She and her friend had managed to pull these two men out of the car, but the driver had died in the fire. The doctor asked a nurse to call the police. He gave orders for the accident victims to be wheeled into the operating room, and told Marisa to wait until he returned. Marisa assured him she’d be back as soon as she had parked the car.
* * *
“What do we do now?” she asked as they swung back onto the road.
“Now we wait.”
“Sounds like a brilliant idea.”
“We don’t want him to tell our story, and he doesn’t want us to tell his. A policeman friend of mine once said to me that if you’ve arrested your culprit but you haven’t understood his motives, your job’s only half done. If Ortiz denounces us he’ll have to explain why we set that trap for him. We’re bound to him by our shared secret. As soon as he’s on the way to recovery, I’ll go back and make a deal with him.”
“So he’s going to get away with it, just like that?”
“We’ll see who has the last word. Your uncle’s not the only one who likes playing games.”
20.
It was early morning by the time Marisa dropped Andrew off at his hotel.
“I’m going to return the car to Alberto,” she said. “See you later.”
“Is it really his car?”
“What difference does it make?”
“If there was a surveillance camera at that hospital, he’d be well advised to get rid of it and report it stolen as soon as possible.”
“Don’t worry, our rural hospitals are too poor to afford cameras. But I’ll tell him.”
Andrew got out and leaned down to the window.
“Marisa, I know you won’t listen to me, but don’t tell your uncle just yet that I’ve found a way to make Ortiz keep his mouth shut.”
“What are you scared of?”
“It’s the two of us who are on the front line. Alberto was hiding in his bar the whole time. Trust me, just this once.”
Marisa roared off. He stood there and watched until the station wagon disappeared.
* * *
Andrew asked for his room key at reception. The manager came out to apologize personally, assuring him nothing of the kind had ever happened before in his hotel. Security measures were being put in place to ensure it would never happen again. He begged Andrew’s forgiveness, and informed him he’d had his things moved to a junior suite on the top floor.
It was hardly comparable to a suite in a luxury hotel, but it had a small living room, and a nicer view of the street. The bathroom taps weren’t leaking, and the bed was a lot more comfortable. Andrew opened his suitcase to make sure nothing was missing. As he rifled through the contents, he felt a small bump in the side pocket. He opened the zipper and found a miniature steam engine inside—the one he’d hankered after at the antique shop in Williamsburg. There was a rolled-up bit of paper sticking out of the smokestack. He extracted it and smoothed it out.
I miss you. I love you. Valerie.
Andrew lay down on the bed, placed the engine on the pillow next to him and fell asleep looking at it.
* * *
He was woken in the early afternoon by someone knocking on his door. He went to open it and found Alberto standing outside.
“I didn’t think you ever left that bar of yours,” Andrew said.
“Only on special occasions,” Alberto replied.
“Ortiz accuses you of sending those goons to my hotel room.”
Alberto’s eyes narrowed. “Get dressed, I’m taking you out to lunch.”
Out on the street, Andrew smiled when he saw Alberto’s car—a Japanese make, not the station wagon.
“I took your advice,” said Alberto. “Anyway, that old car had clocked up more than 120,000 miles. It was about time I got a new one.”
“I hope you didn’t come here just to show me your new car.”
“Oh, this one’s borrowed. I came to apologize to you. The last thing I wanted was for a man to lose his life.”
“I warned you.”
“I know. You should leave Argentina before the police catch up with you. I told Marisa to lay low in the countryside until things blow over.”
“Did she agree?”
“No, she doesn’t want to lose her job. If it becomes really necessary, I’ll write to her aunt to ask her to intervene. Marisa will listen to her. It’s different for you—you’re a foreigner, and it’ll be more complicated for you to flee the country later. There’s no point taking risks.”
Alberto parked in front of a bookshop.
“I thought we were going out to lunch.”
“We are. There’s a restaurant in the back. This place belongs to a friend of mine so we’ll be able to talk in peace.”
The bookshop was a charming place. A long corridor lined with bookshelves led to a patio where a few tables were laid out. The owner was serving meals to a handful of regulars who sat surrounded by hundreds of books. Alberto greeted his
friend, found a table and motioned to Andrew to sit down across from him.
“Luisa and I separated because I’m a coward, Mr. Stilman. It was my fault our son . . . disappeared. I was an activist during the Dirty War. I didn’t do anything particularly heroic. I merely contributed to putting together an underground opposition newspaper. We had hardly any money, just determination and a copy machine—not much, you see, but we felt we were doing what we could to resist. The military managed to flush out a few of my comrades. They were arrested, tortured, and disappeared. Those who fell into their hands never talked.”
“Do you remember if one of them was named Rafael?” Andrew asked.
Alberto stared at Andrew before replying.
“Maybe. I don’t know. It was forty years ago, and we didn’t all know each other.”
“What about his wife, Isabel?”
“I told you, I don’t remember,” Alberto repeated, his voice rising briefly. “I’ve done my best to forget. My son Manuel was kidnapped shortly after the raids that decimated our ranks. He had nothing to do with any of it. He was just an ordinary mechanical engineering student. Febres wanted to get at me through him. That’s what Luisa thinks, anyway. Febres must have believed I’d give myself up to get Manuel out. I didn’t.”
“Not even to save your son?”
“No. I had to save my friends. I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough not to give up their names if I was tortured a second time. And in any case, they wouldn’t have freed Manuel. They never released any of their prisoners. Luisa’s never forgiven me for it.”
“Did she know about the newspaper?”
“She used to write most of the articles in it.”
Alberto fell silent.
“Did you send those men, Alberto?”
The old man didn’t look up. He took out his wallet, extracted a yellowing photo of a young man and handed it to Andrew.
“Luisa’s child was stolen from her. The whole world is guilty in her opinion. See what a handsome boy Manuel was? He was brave and generous, and so funny. He loved his mother more than anything. I know he didn’t talk either . . . he wanted to protect her. He knew about her activities. You should have seen the two of them together. We had a more distant relationship, my son and I, but he was the person I loved most in the world, even though I never knew how to show it. I wish I could have seen him again one last time. I would have told him how proud I was of him, how happy he’d made me as a father, how much his absence has weighed on me since he left us.
“My life stopped the day they took him away from us. Luisa has no tears left. As for me, my tears flow each time I see a boy his age in the street. More than once I’ve followed a young man who looked like him in the hope that he’d turn around and call me Papá. Sadness can drive you insane, Mr. Stilman, and it’s only now I realize that I never should have done what I did. Manuel won’t ever come back. I dug a hole in the courtyard of our house and buried his things in it—his schoolbooks, pencils and novels; the sheets he slept in his last night at home. Every Sunday I wait for the lights to go out in Luisa’s room and I go to the foot of that big jacaranda tree to mourn for him. I know my wife’s hiding behind her curtains and looking out at me. I know she’s praying for him too. Maybe it’s all for the best that we never saw his body.”
Andrew reached out and covered Alberto’s hand with his own. Alberto looked up and smiled sadly.
“Maybe I don’t look my age, but I’m going to be 80 next year, and I’m still hoping death will give me a chance to meet my son again. I suppose living to such an old age is my penance.”
“I’m sorry, Alberto.”
“And so am I. Because of me, Ortiz will get off lightly. When he recovers, he’ll go back to his life as if nothing had happened. And yet we were so close.”
“Would you lend me your car until tomorrow evening?”
“Where do you need to go?”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“Drop me off at the bar, and then you can keep it.”
“Where can I find Marisa right now?”
“At her place, I suppose. She works nights and sleeps all day. What a life!”
Andrew handed his notebook and pen to Alberto.
“Write down her address for me, please. But don’t let her know I’m coming.”
Alberto looked at him questioningly.
“It’s your turn to trust me,” Andrew said.
* * *
After dropping Alberto at the bar, Andrew followed his directions to Marisa’s place in the Palermo Viejo neighborhood. He climbed the stairs to the third story of the small building on Calle Malabia. Marisa looked taken aback to see him when she opened the door, dressed only in a towel.
“What are you doing here? I was expecting a girlfriend.”
“Call her and cancel, then get dressed. Or the other way around if you prefer.”
“Just because we slept together once doesn’t mean you can order me around.”
“It’s got nothing to do with that.”
“I’ll tell my friend it’s off. We can stay here if you like,” Marisa said, dropping her towel. She looked even sexier than Andrew remembered. He knelt to pick up the towel and wound it around her shoulders.
“Sometimes the second time’s not as good as the first. Go get dressed. We’ve got important things to do.”
She stalked away, slamming the bathroom door behind her.
Andrew looked around Marisa’s studio apartment. The living room doubled as a bedroom. The bed was unmade, but the rumpled white sheets looked clean and inviting. Books were in precarious piles against one wall, and brightly colored cushions were scattered around a low table in the middle of the room. Shelves groaned under the weight of more books on another wall, between two windows that let the light flood in. The place was as messy and attractive as the woman who lived in it.
Marisa reappeared wearing a pair of jeans that were ripped at the knee and a tank top that hugged her breasts revealingly.
“Where are we going?” she demanded, hunting for her keys.
“To see your aunt.”
Marisa stopped short.
“Why didn’t you say so?” she grumbled.
She went and pulled a pair of black corduroy pants and an old T-shirt out of a pile of clothes on the floor. She slipped off her jeans, yanked her top over her head and got changed in front of Andrew.
* * *
Andrew drove. Marisa lit a cigarette and opened the window.
“What do you want from Luisa?”
“I need to ask her a question to wind up my investigation. And I also want to ask her to stop treating me like an idiot.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because she and your uncle still see each other, despite their claims to the contrary.”
“I find that hard to believe. What business it is of yours, anyway?”
“You’ll understand later.”
* * *
Luisa didn’t seem surprised when she opened the door and found Andrew and her niece standing there. She showed them into the living room.
“What can I do for you?” she asked.
“Tell me everything you really know about Major Ortiz.”
“I’ve already told you, I don’t know much about him. Before I met you, he was just one of many photos in my album.”
“Can I see your album again, please? Not the one with the photos of the torturers—the one with the pictures of their victims.”
“Of course.”
Luisa opened the sideboard drawer and handed Andrew the album. He flicked through every last page.
“Don’t you have any photos of Isabel and Rafael Cruz?” he asked Luisa, staring at her intently.
“Sorry, but those names don’t mean anything to me. I don’t have photos of every single one of the thirty
thousand people who were disappeared—only the five hundred or so whose children were stolen.”
“They had a daughter called María Luz. She was two when her parents were killed. Have you overlooked her story, then?”
“You don’t intimidate me, Mr. Stilman, nor does your impertinence. You know very little about the work we’ve accomplished. Since we began our battle to expose the truth, we’ve only managed to establish the true identities of ten percent of the stolen children. We still have a long way to go. Considering my age, I’ll probably never see us attain our goal. Why are you so interested in this little girl’s fate?”
“Major Ortiz adopted her. Quite a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean, ‘coincidence’?”
“There was a photo of María Luz in the file that put us on Ortiz’s trail, without any explanation of the connection between the two.”
“It would seem your informer, whoever he is, wanted to steer you in a certain direction.”
“He . . . or she?”
“I’m tired, Marisa. You need to take your friend home; it’s time for my siesta.”
Marisa gestured to Andrew to get up. As she kissed her aunt goodbye, she murmured into her ear that she was sorry.
“Don’t be,” Luisa whispered back. “He’s not bad looking, and life’s too short.”
On their way down the front steps, Andrew asked Marisa to wait in the courtyard for a moment; he’d left his pen on the dining room table.
Luisa frowned when she saw him return.
“Have you forgotten something, Mr. Stilman?”
“Please call me Andrew. I’d be delighted if you would. I just had one last thing to say before I let you get your rest: I’m glad you and Alberto have made up.”